Ants in my house!

[lovemyfamily6]

We started getting ants in the kitchen yesterday. I see where they're coming in (there's a two foot section of wall between the sliding door and end of the counter, they're coming in under the baseboard). How do I get rid of them? I went out today and bought some caulk but need to know how to get rid of the one's already here. I just looked and see some under the counter as well. :

[lunar forest]

there were ants discovered in my living room this afternoon. Carrying away a piece of ricecake.

I've tried lots of anti-ant methods -natural and not- and the best way I've found is to simply not invite them in in the first place. That is, no crumbs, no jam smears, nothing on the floor or counters ever. Constantly clean everything with vin.water mixture.

[lovemyfamily6]

Yeah, my floor has some cereal pieces from the baby boy. We've been pretty sick until recently so the cleaning went by the wayside. We've just never never had ants, even when it wasn't sparkling clean.

I used to clean the floors with vinegar/water, but then heard that vinegar is bad for tile grout. Now I just use hot water. I did put a couple vinegar soaked cotton balls in the two places I thought they were coming in yesterday and not thinking, put one on the grout by the baseboard. Now there is a powdery groove.

[lunar forest]

don't you have some kind of seal over your grout? I've always cleaned ceramic tile with vin/water and never had a proble, except in one house where there was no seal over the grout in the kitchen. Just about any cleaner wore away at the grout, but we sealed it and never had a proublem after that. There's a reason they seal 'em, yk?

[heatherweh]

Ants in my house too. I've been a horrible housekeeper since we moved in, but I guess they didn't notice until today. : So far I've put all the fruit that would normally be out into the refrigerator and made sure there isn't anything on the counters or tables. Tomorrow will be a thorough cleaning of the floor I suppose. Anything else I should do?

[Sali]

The Solution

I usually get all my info from you ladies, so I'm happy to have an answer for once and not be lurking!

We have an annual ant problem as well, and the solution we've used is liberal sprinkling of baby powder (or just cornstarch) at the point of entry. The ants eat it, it expands and they die. We just keep it sprinkled at all times during the summer, and it works really well.

It takes a little while to work, but it does work eventually.

Good luck!

[lunar forest]

I've heard great things about the powder methods, but they didn't work for me. I think my ants were too crafty for me.